Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach

A/N: I have excuses, but I'll save that for later. And OOC. It's just, like, there.

It's All in Your Head

He scratched absently at the growing stubble on his chin. Blunt, bristle-like golden strands tickled at his fingers. He'd forgone shaving these past few days and he figured he should attend to it soon. Else, he'd end up looking much too much like his goat chinned old man and Ichigo Kurosaki had strived to be as unlike him as possible since he was twelve. It wasn't to say his father was a bad person, in fact he was a great one, but Ichigo found him to be a little more off his rocker than socially acceptable.

Maybe that was hypocritical of him though, given his own mental state wasn't perfect.

He stretched his lanky and muscled arms over his head, amber eyes peering at the analog clock ticking on the opposite wall. It clicked slowly, but ever closer to the five o'clock hour which would signal him being able to leave home. He'd finished everything that needed to be done that day hours ago, like usual, so he was left to waste time in his rather empty office. The precinct wasn't ready to fully work with him, he guessed and he couldn't blame them.

"You know they'll show up soon and slaughter you like a pig: bullet to the head, then a knife across your throat, and hang you from ceiling to watch you bleed!"

The voice was manic, sudden and Ichigo jolted out of his bored state to face the figure looming over him. Large and stocky with his face in shadow but still showing a malicious grin. The figure continued to yell at him, lunging at him from the other side of the desk. His hand beat repeatedly on the desk, a strip of glistening metal in his palm.

Ichigo quickly stood from his chair, trying not to panic as he reached for the door handle and turned it. The yelling grew louder in those few seconds. An ear splitting cacophony of taunting and vicious threats that made him grit his teeth and his pulse race.

"Ichigo." His vision had gone blurry, but cleared instantaneously at the sound of her voice. She stood before him, petite and dark haired with a look of stark seriousness.

"Look behind you." She continued, her voice holding an air of professionalism.

Doing as told, he turned to the empty office in back of him. Void of anything besides an old oak desk and rusted file cabinet.

"It's all in your head." She whispered as she flipped his bright orange bangs from his eyes with her pale hand, her finger nails painted a black as dark as her short hair.

"Rukia." He let out in a long breath. "Just my imagination. You painted your nails."

"A little obvious, dork. Don't like it?" Rukia asked with an arched eyebrow.

Ichigo frowned at her, noting her state of dress. A white, flowing sundress that ended at her slim ankles and black sandals. It looked nice, but wasn't something one wore in February. Her violet eyes watched curiously as he began to shrug off his sweater.

"I didn't say that. Anyway, where's your jacket? Are you trying to commit suicide via hypothermia?"

"I don't need it." She said as she swiftly grabbed the sides of his jacket and tugged them together before zippering it up.

"Let's go home." She announced and turned away to walk down the lonely hallway to the rest of the cubicles.

When he was first assigned to the precinct, they had led him straight down that very hallway with its window-like walls and dropped him in and old back office that he assumed used to be a sort of closet. It was expected though. They wanted to keep the crazy from the general populace.

She's already slipped away and through the front rotating doors when he walks into the main room. It's filled with the sounds of shuffling paper, ringing phones and clacking keyboards like any office. Each desk is separated into a cubicle by short, fake grey walls. In the farthest side of the room, is a line of chairs all with individuals in cuffs brought in for questioning or small crime. They don't let the more serious cases sit around so casually.

He made his way through the maze of desks and almost made it out the door without having to have an awkward conversation when his name was called. The precinct liked to rotate secretaries like seasons and there was always a new face almost every week. One, however, had stuck with the job for a while. Orihime Inoue was already working as a secretary at Precinct 8 by the time they gave Ichigo a position there.

She was a nice woman with hair almost as bright as his own and kind, light eyes, but Ichigo didn't have the best social skills so small talk was not his forte. Orihime was the only person who bothered to talk to him even though all their conversations were trivial.

"Are you doing anything Friday night?" she asked, bouncing slightly in her chair out of obvious nervousness.

"Um."

"See there is a thing at City Hall on Friday and I was asked to ask you to go!" she said hurriedly. It wouldn't take a detective to notice that she had tacked on an excuse to cover asking him out. He rubbed the back of his neck and directed his gaze to the doors Rukia had just left out of.

"I'm actually busy and I kind of need to leave." He dismissed her a little rudely, but he couldn't see Rukia anymore. "See you around."

He wondered if anyone else ever thought of being trapped inside revolving doors as he followed the moving panels out onto the city street.

"There you are." Rukia said. She was leaning up against the brown-red brick wall watching the cars pass and continue up the street.

"Couldn't you have gotten us a cab?" he asked with mock irritation.

She glared at him and huffed, "I'll let you do it."

It was usually pretty difficult to hail a cab in that area since it was always so busy and congested with traffic. The cab slid up to the curb and he opened the door for her while asking,

"You had to take a cab up here, didn't you?"

The cab driver eyed him through the rearview mirror in an almost wary way. Ichigo curtly told the driver his and Rukia's address and the yellow car pulled away from the sidewalk.

In the time that he had known Rukia, he had had to deal with weird looks from others whenever he was with her. He dealt with it though as he enjoyed her company and he came to the conclusion that people just found her attractive and mysterious. See, Rukia was a lot like him. She was very, very shy and he had never heard her speak to anyone but him and no one ever tried to speak to her either. He met her during his senior year of high school. She was his age, but had dropped out of school and they became fast friends. She'd been with him since then and she helped him separate what was reality and what was not.

"I think one of the secretaries has a thing for me." He tells her as they leave the backseat and Ichigo hands the driver the fare. As he does so, he and Rukia receive the normal looks of confusion and together they walk into the apartment building's main lobby.

Rukia chuckles. "Does she now?"

"She asked me to this City Hall thing. Like a dance or something."

"You should go." Rukia teased. "It would be good for you."

They boarded the elevator and Ichigo pressed the button for floor six, the topmost floor, where they lived.

"Why?"

"You need to socialize more. Besides, you're a man, she's a woman and she likes you. It isn't difficult to figure out."

"Socialize? You don't have any friends at all, Rukia. At least I work. I have you to talk to and that's all."

By then, he had opened the door to the small one bedroom apartment and Rukia had sat herself on the couch in front of the television and Ichigo had come to sit beside her, slumped into the cushions with his head on her shoulder.

"You know, you don't always have to take care of me. If you want to go out and do things, go. I'm pretty damn smart. I can tell what is a hallucination on my own."

Rukia pressed her forehead to his and Ichigo leaned away slightly, unused to how close she was. Her amythest eyes met his chocolate brown ones.

"I'm more like you than you think, Ichigo. I don't need anything else."

They went out for a long walk that Friday night. Ichigo felt a little guilty about lying to Orihime about having plans, but he didn't want to have plans with anyone but Rukia. Why go looking at other girls when he already had the best one?

She was wearing the same white dress, his favorite, but with a powder blue cardigan to keep her warm. He held her small pale hand in his larger tan one and he smiled down at her lovingly and she grinned back up at him before placing a kiss on his cheek.

oOo

Orihime Inoue sat in front of City Hall just across the street when she saw Ichigo Kurosaki walking past. He was dressed nice in a coat and scarf as if he were on a date. He wore a kind loving look mixed with a sort of scowl as he talked to someone next to him. She could see who through the crowd.

"It's time to go in, Orihime." Said a tall, bespectacled man, but Orihime was transfixed on the sight across the street. Ichigo seemed to be engaged in conversation… with no one.

Her friend ushered her away from her place and into the hall before he answered her confused stare.

"Didn't you know?" he asked. "Detective Kurosaki has schizophrenia."

A/N 2: Well, long time no see guys. I remember saying that I was going to work on my fics all summer. Obviously, that didn't happen. I haven't had a working computer of my own since May and I had just paid my tuition than for the coming semester when my desktop broke. I'm still really short on money until I go back to work in a few weeks. Until then, all I have is my phone and my mother's laptop. I can't steal her computer for an entire summer now can I?

I've taken it over for today and this is the result. (I watched TNT's Perception last night and I needed to get this out.) It's just a simple little thing. The plot could be expanded on, I guess. But I like where it's at. I kinda think it's a little pointless and plotless and OOC, but I hope it's fine. I really just needed to write something. (I also notice that they seem a lot like Pat and Tiffany from the Silver Linings Playbook which I just finished reading today. So that has influenced it too.) It is short and kinda rushed, but I didn't mean for it to be anything on a really grand scale..

I dislike the ending. I mean, what. I made Ichi crazy. I want to make a quick apology here. I don't know much about mental disorders. I just read and watch a lot of television and it's something that interests me. Ichigo isn't psycho. He functions pretty normally and doesn't want to slash anything up. If I was wrong about anything, I apologize. (It's the main reason I didn't delve too much into it. Those with any disorder can still live normal lives. They aren't always bad or bad to associate with…

Anyway, once I get myself a laptop, things will start moving along more. I'm also really sorry if you were expecting much more out of this...

I'm starting my second year of college in a month!

S.B